


A Mile in His Shoes

by rabidchild67



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Biphobia, Bisexuality, Bodyswap, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zach wakes up in Chris’s body. Time for wacky Freaky Friday shenanigans, right? Wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_BEEP…BEEP…BEEP_

The sound of a garbage truck in reverse shot through Zach’s skull with a lack of mercy he’d have only attributed to raptors toying with their prey and his massage therapist, but there it was. He opened his eyes on a curse, “FUCK!” and instantly regretted it. His head was splitting. No, it was pounding. No, whatever was pounding on his skull from the inside was going to split his head right open.

He covered his eyes with his arm and was surprised to find he was on a couch. Glancing to his left, he was more surprised to realize it was Chris’s couch. What the hell had happened that he’d slept on the couch last night? And hadn't they started out at his place? He had absolutely no memory – the headache took almost all recollection away – though a lingering feeling of something like regret made him feel uneasy. And he really had to pee.

Pushing himself up with a low grown, he rose and stumbled across the living room. God, his legs were so wobbly and strange. His shoulder bashed into the doorway on his way to the half-bath, and he flinched as his bare feet hit the cold of the kitchen floor. His other shoulder caught the bathroom door as he heaved himself through it and he winced. What the hell was up with him today? Besides the hangover, obviously. 

He leaned on an outstretched arm as he pissed for way too long; the relief of it was nearly exquisite. Tucking himself back up, he flushed and turned to the sink. He rinsed his hands and then splashed cold water on his face. Grabbing the towel that hung beside the sink, he dried his face, dropped it onto the sink and instinctively glanced in the mirror before turning back around. He meant to head back into the kitchen to make a pot of Forgive Me Coffee and maybe a batch of I Grovel at Your Feet Eggs if Chris had any in the fridge.

And then something hit him and he stopped. And he turned back around. And he looked at himself in the mirror.

“What. The actual. Fuck?” he heard himself say, in Chris’s voice, while Chris’s reflection stared back at him in the mirror.

He squinted, got up closer to the mirror to make sure he wasn’t seeing things; he’d left his glasses off – maybe he was. But no. No matter how close he got to that mirror, there were a pair of blue eyes staring back at him that were set inside a face that, if he’d take a moment to really look at it, looked almost comically incredulous. 

“CHRIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSS!!” he yelled. It was likely more like a high-pitched, girly scream, but he would never admit it.

Zach ran from the bathroom, through the kitchen to the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Chris!” he shouted as he rounded the corner from the kitchen. “Chris!” he yelled as his bare feet hit the stairs. He was breathless by the time he reached the master bedroom, pushed through the door to find – that the room was empty, the bed still made.

“Chris?” 

Zach moved into the bedroom and looked around – there was no sign of another person there. “Oh God, what is happening?” he moaned. “Chris!” A search of the bathroom, both guest bedrooms, and Chris’s office yielded nothing. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find; actually, he was sure, he was expecting to find Chris in a Zach suit looking just as freaked out as he was, at least _some_ where in the house. But within minutes it became very clear to him that he was in the house all alone. 

So they hadn’t spent last night together – that much was clear, and he didn't know what to make of it. He suddenly missed Chris’s presence acutely but there was nothing he could really do about it. He huffed in frustration and looked down at his body, still breathless after the panic and the exertion of the last several minutes. 

“This is some fucked shit up right here,” he observed hopelessly, and finally looked down at himself.

None of his parts were where they were supposed to be. Well, that wasn’t strictly true – clearly they were where they were _supposed_ to be – he was still a human, after all – but they weren't his. His pecs were bigger, his arms shorter but more muscular, his body hair… almost nonexistent. Pulling the waistband of his boxers open, he peered down at his junk. Squinted was more like it – Chris was way more near-sighted than Zach was – and sure enough, there was a circumcised dick in there. 

Letting the elastic go, he padded into the bathroom in search of Chris’s contact lenses; he needed to see things clearly, dammit. He found the case on the sink and put them on, then got right back to the self-exam. 

Everything felt heavier, thicker. He supposed that was to be expected – Chris weighed more, was more densely muscled. But Chris’s muscles were _hard_ too, much more so than Zach’s, and it affected the way he moved. He switched his weight from foot to foot, felt his hips with his hands, his stomach, his buttocks. It was all so strange. And it was strange that it was strange, because it wasn’t as if he’d never had his own hands on _this_ body before, any number of times. What a difference perspective made.

The distant trill of a cell phone interrupted his inspection and he jumped, running downstairs to find it. Fumbling through the couch cushions, he found the thing and picked it up. _Katie_ the readout said, and Zach let it ring through to voice mail – there was no way he was ready to deal with a member of Chris’s family, not like this. 

While he had the phone in his hands, he opened the contact list and found his own number in there. He tapped the screen and waited for the call to go through, but it went to voice mail. The beep sounded, and he was about to leave a message but choked on what he might say. What exactly did one say when caught in the midst of a Freaky Friday-type situation? Other than an urgent, “It’s me. Call me back, man, OK?”

He hung up and did some yoga breathing, trying to calm himself, then decided that he had faced quite enough mystical quandaries for one morning before he’d even had any caffeine. Caffeine made everything better, it just did. Grabbing up a hoodie he found on the couch, he pulled it on as he walked back to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

Chris stocked the world’s best coffee in his home, and Zach loved it. Not that he’d admit it – he always made fun of Chris for his Lamill addiction and obsession with details like the _terroire_ of the beans – but he secretly enjoyed reaping the benefits. He sat down at the kitchen island all slumped over as he waited for the coffee to brew and tried to wrack his brains over what had happened the night before.

Zach remembered they had plans to go to dinner at that Ethiopian place Chris favored because it was BYO and he loved the goat stew. Chris brought a six pack of an IPA from Oregon; it was Zach’s turn to pay. They ate. There was some sort of warm fruit dish for dessert. They got up? They left? Apparently, since he was sitting here – they hadn’t spent the night in the restaurant, clearly. But everything after that was a blank. 

The beep of the coffee maker interrupted his frustrated reminiscing and he shot to his feet to pour himself a cup. He wrinkled his nose as he took a sip – he’d made it too weak. Huh – he pretty much made it the same way he did at home, and Chris and he had the same coffeemaker. Could it be that Chris’s taste buds were so different? That was interesting to consider – he wondered what else might be so different in this new body.

After downing two cups of coffee, he tried calling his own phone again (without success; he didn’t leave another message). Feeling out of sorts, some weird instinct inside him kicked in and he decided he needed to go for a run, thinking it might clear his head. The caffeine hadn’t done enough to dissipate his headache, and he hoped some exercise might take care of the rest of it. Finding sneakers in the bedroom closet, he donned a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and headed out the front door.

Running in Chris’s body was an interesting experience. His center of gravity was different, which made the mechanics of running initially problematic, and he was a lot clumsier than Chris typically was. Once he’d gone maybe half a mile, he began to get used to it. Chris’s body was strong – which of course Zach knew – but he also had a stamina and an inner reserve that Zach had only guessed at before, and it was interesting to put his body through its paces. Eventually, he was able to blank his mind, and consider what the hell might have happened.

Clearly, his consciousness now resided within the body of his boyfriend. It seemed reasonable to assume that Chris’s was similarly trapped in Zach’s body, wherever that might be. He had no reason to believe that his body wasn’t at home, whether or not Chris had answered his phone. Maybe Chris was still sleeping – who knew what kind of toll swapping one’s consciousness with his significant other could take on a person. Zach would have laughed hysterically at the absurdity of this line of thinking if he thought it would help.

He ran for about a half an hour and though it served to calm him, it did nothing to shed a light on what had happened, and he was no closer to remembering all of the events of the night before. He returned to Chris’s house, exhausted and feeling kind of hopeless. He headed upstairs to take a shower, checking the cell phone to see if Chris had called back. Surprisingly, he had not, but there were two more missed calls from Katie. Frowning – who knew Chris and his sister were this close? – Zach turned the water on and waited for it to heat up. 

When he got into the shower, Zach was surprised to find it wasn’t quite warm enough. He raised the temperature a lot higher than he’d personally have enjoyed, pausing to luxuriate in it as the hot water penetrated his muscles. Afterward, he dried off and got dressed in a pair of Chris’s old, beat-up jeans, then chose a white t-shirt almost without thinking, its worn fabric so soft against his skin it felt like he was wearing nothing. 

A loud grumbling in his stomach reminded him he hadn’t yet eaten, so he went to the kitchen and grabbed a yogurt from the fridge. He didn't normally eat breakfast, but as soon as he started eating it, he realized just how ravenous he felt. He ate the remaining two yogurts he found in the fridge, along with a granola bar and two bananas. He was giving a box of instant oatmeal the hairy eyeball when Chris’s phone rang yet again. He was just reaching into his pocket for it when the front doorbell rang. 

He panicked. Here was his first test – he wasn’t expecting to have to pretend to be Chris this soon – or at all if he might have helped it. Could he pull off acting like Chris? He supposed it depended on who was at the door – maybe he’d get lucky and it was FedEx or something. The phone rang again in his pocket, reminding him it needed attention. He rose, digging for the device even as he walked through to the front of the house. He managed to fish the phone out just as he reached the door. 

_Joe Quinto_ the readout said.

Why would his brother be calling Chris?

The doorbell rang again – twice. Whoever they were was getting impatient. 

Zach thumbed the phone to answer it even as his hand closed over the doorknob. “Joe? Hey – can you hold on a sec, man?” he said distractedly, then lowered the phone as he opened the door. 

“Chris? Chris?” He could hear Joe’s tinny voice coming from the phone as he looked down to find Katie standing on the front porch.

“Chris!” she said. “Oh sweetie, I came as soon as I heard!” she said before flinging herself through the door and throwing her arms around him.

“Heard? Heard what?” Zach said slowly even as Joe’s shouted Chris’s name over the line.

“Oh my God, don’t you know? It’s Zach – there's been a terrible accident.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zach remembers the night before.

Zach wasn’t sure how he was able to stand there as Katie hugged him tight, talking about doctors and hospitals. His vision blurred for a moment and he was certain if she was not there he’d have fallen to his knees. But Joe’s voice, urgent and strained, coming through the phone, finally roused him.

“Joe?” he said into it after he’d raised it to his ear. 

“Hey man. I don’t know how to tell you this…”

“I know, um, Katie’s here.”

“I’m sorry I called her – I didn't know what else to do.” Zach wondered at that too – it wasn’t as if Joe didn't have Chris’s number. “I wasn’t really thinking clearly, I guess.”

God, poor Joe – he was always such a worrywart, always so protective of his little brother when they were growing up; the thought of him at the hospital facing all of this alone made Zach’s chest hurt. “It’s OK. What happened?” 

“They don’t know, they… someone found him, just lying on a sidewalk? Docs say he’s got… head trauma. I don’t know, Chris, it’s bad.” His voice broke on the last word, ratcheting up Zach’s fear.

“Is he… is he gonna make it?” Zach whispered.

“I don’t know, they haven’t told me anything.”

Zach felt like he might have to puke. No, he definitely had to puke – his mouth was watering and he felt a cold sweat break out all over his body. “Just hold on, man – I’ll be there as soon as I can, OK?”

“Sure. Sure, OK.”

“And Joe? It’s only as bad as you think it is, right?” he added without thinking. It was a saying their mother used all the time when they were kids, meaning that good thoughts could only help in the face of bad news. Zach and Joe had used it as well, as a kind of shorthand whenever they got bad or discouraging news, which happened a lot when they were both just starting out here in LA.

“What?” Joe asked, surprised, and Zach flinched, realizing he’d just slipped up. He needed to remember to pretend he was Chris.

“It’s something he says to me all the time, you know?” he lied. Zach couldn’t remember ever saying that to Chris; maybe he ought to start. 

“Sure. Sure, man – I’ll see you.”

Zach hung up the phone with shaking hands. “I’m in the hospital?” he said, still in shock.

“No, honey, Zach’s in the hospital. And we’ll get you there to see him, all right?”

Zach couldn’t answer; it was all he could do to get to the kitchen in time to puke in the sink.

\----

“What happened?” Zach asked for the second time, still a bit shell-shocked. They’d arrived to find Joe alone in a waiting area; the doctors had been close-lipped about what might be wrong, saying only that they needed to run more tests. 

“Cops think it was just an accident – he tripped and hit his head?” Joe said. 

Zach shuddered and wracked his brain and could still not recall what might have happened to him. “Were there any traffic cameras or whatever?” He had caught the barest glimpse of his body before it was whisked away for these mysterious tests; the duty nurse, a kind woman named Stefanie, was a Trek fan and had promised to keep them informed about what was going on

When Joe didn’t answer, Zach glanced up at him; his brother stood across the room with tears in his eyes, long arms hugging himself. Zach hadn’t seen him cry since their grandfather died twelve years ago. “Joe?”

“I’m sorry, Chris,” was all he could say before he covered his eyes with one of his hands and turned away.

“Hey, hey, I’m gonna be _fine_ ,” Zach groaned inwardly. “ _He’s_ gonna be fine,” he amended, speaking louder as if that would cover the faux pas that must have made Chris seem like a self-centered prick, which he most certainly was not. Fortunately, Joe was crying so he didn't seem to hear. Unfortunately, _Joe was crying._

Zach moved in close and wrapped his arms around his brother’s shoulders. Joe leaned into Zach suddenly, making him sway a little to maintain balance. “He’ll pull through this, he will,” Zach said with a confidence he had no good reason to feel.

\----

Zach felt a tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. Looking up, he was surprised to find Katie standing above him – he’d forgotten she was here. He’d spent the last two hours sitting in the waiting area in the trauma ward at the hospital, staring broodingly at the floor. There had been no news from the doctors and the waiting was beginning to wear on him. 

Katie held out a wrapped sandwich and a cup of orange juice to him. “Here.”

Zach accepted them, and then she pulled an apple from her pocket and handed him that too. “What’s this all for?”

“You know how you get if you don’t eat.”

“It’s only 11:00.”

She gave him a speaking look and he dutifully unwrapped the sandwich – turkey on multigrain with some sort of cheese and alfafa sprouts. When the smell of it hit his nostrils, his stomach growled rather than turned, which would have been his normal reaction. The next think he knew more than half the sandwich was gone. Man, that was the last time he made fun of Chris for eating all the time – clearly his body needed it. He already felt better as the sugar in the OJ hit his blood stream and the sick, shaky feeling he’d been experiencing faded; he had just thought it was nerves and worry when it had actually been low blood sugar. 

“Good boy,” Katie said. “Finish it all and maybe you can have this.” She pulled an oversized chocolate chip cookie from her pocket and waved it around.

“You know, I’m a grown-ass man,” he said before shoving the last bite of the sandwich into his face.

She just smiled knowingly and sipped at the cup of tea she’d gotten for herself. “Where’s Joe?”

“Talking to Mom. _His_ mom.”

Katie looked sad. “Poor thing – I can’t imagine what she’s going through, to be so far away. And how about you? How are you holding up?”

Zach shrugged – though Katie was Chris’s sister and he genuinely liked her, it didn't mean he could open up about what he was feeling right now.

She scooted over to sit closer to him and wrapped her arms around his upper arm, clutching it tight. “I know how much you love him, Weenie.” 

_Weenie?_

“I can’t imagine how hard it must be to see the most important person in your life lying there like that. It’s awful.”

“It’s not knowing what’s up that’s hard,” he found himself saying. “Or what happened, or how.” 

“What _did_ happen? I thought you two were going out to dinner last night?”

Zach swallowed uneasily. There was that empty space in his memory, the one filled with guilt that he couldn’t find a reason for. 

“Did you get to talk to him?” she continued.

“We talked,” Zach answered vaguely. Sure, of course they talked. About their dinner orders, and plans for Thanksgiving.

“Chris,” she said, drawing the syllable out, “how are things going to get better unless you talk to him about it?”

_Better? Weren’t they just fine?_

“You don’t want the same thing to happen with Zach that happened with Dom, do you?” she asked as she took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it; Zach hadn’t realized he’d clenched it into a fist.

_What was that supposed to mean?_

“I guess not,” he mush-mouthed.

“I mean, if he can’t understand what you’re feeling, what even is the point of sticking it out?”

 _“ I don’t know why I thought you’d be the one to finally get it. What even is the point?”_

Zach flinched violently as her words triggered a memory from the night before, flashes of him and Chris together, snippets of conversation appeared in his memory, disjointed, random. He didn't know he had risen and walked away from her until he was bursting through the waiting room doors. He felt nauseous suddenly and lurched through the hallway to find a men’s room.

And then he remembered. He remembered everything.

\----

Dinner was interesting – it was always diverting to watch Chris eat, the obvious joy he took in food, and to see those lips lick those fingers as he ate the tasty Ethiopian fare was definitely a turn-on. When they got up to go, Zach realized it was still early, and he suggested they go for a walk.

“Sure,” Chris said, and they did. The night was cool – autumn was taking hold of LA at last – and they walked close enough so that their arms touched, Zach slightly ahead, Chris’s shoulder a constant, warm presence.

Suddenly, Chris paused, hung back. “Oh look.”

Zach’s eyes followed where he was pointing; across the street was a Mexican restaurant that was set back from the road, and in front of it was a small courtyard. At its center was a fountain, its sides inlaid with colorful tile, its edges broad enough to sit upon. During busy times, it was probably where patrons waiting for a table would sit. 

Zach groaned. “Do we have to?”

“Come on, it’ll only take a minute,” Chris urged with a small smile on his face; he was already heading in that direction. Chris never passed a fountain by, not if he could help it. It was a holdover from childhood, when his mother would always give her children coins to make wishes. Chris always made time for wishes.

Zach made a noise of protest and dragged his feet even as he walked across the deserted street.

Chris stopped in front of the fountain, digging in his pocket for loose change. Nearby, the door to the restaurant opened and three young women emerged. 

“Chris? Is that – it is, hey you!”

They both looked over as a tall blonde made her way over to them. “Hey you!” Chris said warmly as she bussed him on the cheek, her hands resting on his waist lightly – and lingering there.

“God, it’s been what, like a year since I saw you?” she asked.

“More like two,” he corrected.

“Damn, you’re right.” Zach did not miss the way her eyes roamed over Chris’s body appreciatively – knowingly. “You look _good_. I like when you’ve got some meat on you.”

Chris rested a hand on his belly and laughed. “Gotta get into fighting shape – the next Trek starts filming in a few months.”

She glanced over at Zach as if she recognized him, but her smile was for Chris. “So I hear. Well, call me when it’s all over – we’ve got some _catching up_ to do.” She actually ran a finger along Chris’s bicep and Zach rolled his eyes.

“Sure, sure,” Chris said, clearly uncomfortable.

“Pizza and beers at Randazzo’s like we used to, huh?”

“Sure, uh, maybe.”

“OK, Chris, see you later, bye,” she said, walking away with her friends with what Zach imagined was meant to be a sexy kind of strut.

“Who was that?” Zach asked, attempting to keep his tone even.

“Gina Something?” Chris answered, looking down at the quarter he held in his fingers rather than at Zach.

“And where do you know her from?”

His eyes met Zach’s for a split second before they looked down again. “We went on like half a dozen dates after I broke up with Dom?”

“Is that a question?”

“No.” Chris frowned – when he was stressed his voice went up at the ends of all his sentences. “We had a few laughs in between legs of the press tour for _Into Darkness_ , but it was never going to go very far so I ended it.”

“ _We_ started dating in between legs of the press tour for _Into Darkness_ ,” Zach reminded, crossing his arms in front of himself.

“I know.”

“Is that when you stopped seeing her?” 

Chris shrugged. 

“Did you date the two of us at the same time?” 

“For like a week? I don’t know what the big deal is here?”

“I didn't like the way she was looking at you.” Zach didn't know what he was thinking saying these things, but something about the way she’d been ogling Chris while giving Zach these dismissive looks rubbed him the wrong way. He wasn’t usually a jealous man – except when he was.

Chris rolled his eyes. “What _way_ was she looking at me?”

“Like a lion looks at a sickly gazelle, like she couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into you.”

Chris laughed. “Get out of here – I’m with you.”

“Does she know that?”

“That’s none of her business.”

“You didn't exactly go out of your way to introduce me as your boyfriend.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asked, raising his voice. “You’re pissed because I don’t introduce you as my boyfriend? Correct me if I’m wrong – but that’s _your_ rule, not mine.”

He had a point – Zach’s drive to keep his private life private was rooted in the constant need when he was younger to keep his sexuality to himself; when he began to get famous, it seemed like a smart thing to continue the practice, even after he’d come out publicly. Chris couldn’t care less who knew who he was dating; he neither hid it nor paraded it around. 

“It’s convenient for you too though, isn’t it? It’ll make it easier on you when you decide you really want to be with women?”

“What?”

“That’s what that was, right? You flirting with her? Practice for getting back in the saddle again or something?” 

“I was not flirting; I was being friendly with an old acquaintance. Yes, she was someone I slept with, but that doesn’t mean I want to be with her again.”

But Zach was all keyed up and all he could do was glare back at Chris.

“Is that what you think I’m doing – playing at being gay and biding my time with you until the novelty wears off and someone better comes along? Someone who’s a woman?”

Zach continued to glare at him

Chris looked like Zach had struck him. “Oh my god, it is, isn’t it? Have you thought this the entire time we’ve been together?”

When Zach didn't answer, Chris shook his head, eyes glittering. “You know, I’m getting so tired of having this conversation every single time I’m in a relationship with someone. I’m bi, Zach, it doesn’t mean I’m confused or that I’m some kind of man-whore. And frankly, I can’t believe you of all people would think that way.”

“Me of all people?” Zach asked hotly; this conversation was making him feel angry and defensive and he didn't like it. 

“Aren’t you the one spouting all that horseshit about living an authentic life? Or does that only apply to being gay? Is that the only source of authenticity for you?” 

“I never said that.”

“Yeah, but you obviously think it – the things you say to me all the time when you think you’re joking.” Chris said bitterly. “I dunno, I guess I was expecting more from the man I love than the same insulting presumptions I’ve gotten my entire life. Why is it always like this? Why can no one ever see _me_?” 

He shook his hand, the one holding the quarter, like he was about to throw a pair of dice. “I wish you could spend just one day in my head, man, then maybe you’d understand.” He winged the quarter into the fountain in disgust; it bounced off the surface once before hitting the central column of the structure and falling into the water with a surprisingly loud _plonk_.

“I can’t think of anything I’d want to do less,” Zach retorted. He meant it to be a joke, but it came out sounding much nastier than he intended. 

“Nice,” Chris said, and there was no doubt now that there were tears in his eyes. “I don’t know why I thought you’d be the one to finally get it.” He said softly, almost to himself, “What even is the point?” He turned and walked quickly away; by the time he got to the corner, he was running.

“Yeah sure, run,” Zach called after him, then sat on the edge of the fountain, brooding and feeling horrible. What the hell just happened? 

Clearly Chris had been holding onto some things, issues Zach hadn’t recognized until tonight. Now Chris was angry at him when all Zach had really wanted to do was express what he thought was some well-deserved jealousy. He supposed he’d have to apologize now; he wondered where he stood, on a 1-to-10 scale of douchbaggery. He should go find Chris, they needed to talk.

Zach stood up and immediately felt dizzy. The last thing he remembered was smashing his head on the side of the fountain as he passed out, the impact cracking its cheerful, yellow tiles.

\----

Zach stood in the men’s room, resting his forehead against the cold metal of the bathroom stall and trying not to hyperventilate. The memories of what had happened the night before were overwhelming him and he could not parse them. He had been so horrible, and said such hateful things. 

He’d let his jealousy and insecurity get the better of him and he’d lashed out. Chris’s face when he left was filled with so much hurt, and Zach had been its cause.

He closed his eyes and willed the image away, without success. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, but the bathroom stall wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

A knock at the door got his attention.

“Chris? Chrissy?”

It was Katie – she’d obviously followed to find out if her baby brother was doing OK. Zach straightened up and pulled his shirt down, left the stall and went to splash cold water on his face. When he looked up into the mirror, the face that looked back at him looked exactly as horrified as it had when Zach had said he couldn’t find it in himself to empathize with him. “Don’t hate me,” he whispered.

“Chris?”

Zach left the men’s room and Katie threw herself into his arms. “I’m sorry, Chris,” she said.

Immediately he thought the worst. “Is he dead?”

“What? No! God no, not that.”

Zach’s knees went wobbly, and he had to sit down.

“I just wanted to apologize for being such a bitch just then,” Katie yammered on as she followed him back to the waiting room. “I shouldn’t be giving you shit about the status of your relationship when your boyfriend is lying in a hospital bed.”

“Yeah, that was pretty shitty.”

She smiled, and the tension in the moment was gone – he had apparently said the right thing, acted appropriately Chris-like to put her at ease. Good for her, but what about him?

“I have to see him,” he said, standing suddenly.

“I don’t know if they’ll let you,” she pointed out.

“I have to see him,” he repeated.

He found the Trekkie nurse and tried his best to sweet talk her, flashing the patented Pine baby blues in a way he hoped would work. She finally took pity on him. “I’m only supposed to let family in, Mr. Pine, but… I suppose Captain Kirk would always be at Mr. Spock’s side.” God bless the fans.

\----

Looking down at your own unconscious body hooked up to multiple machines and monitors was a very sobering experience. Zach’s first glimpse of himself – of Chris trapped inside his body – made him physically recoil in shock, even as he was drawn inexorably toward the hospital bed. He stared at his body with the kind of sick fascination he used to reserve for thumbing through old medical textbooks. Black and white photos of late-stage syphilis victims had nothing on seeing yourself comatose in a hospital bed.

But it wasn’t him, was it?

He held out a shaking hand but he could not touch, not yet. Instead, he rested his hands lightly on the bedrail and leaned forward. The body – he couldn’t really think of it as Chris; he refused to think of it as himself – lay motionless and still, face pale and quiescent. If it weren’t for the bandage on the head, he might have been sleeping. 

“Chris?” he said, his voice thick-sounding. He tried to touch him again, but all he could manage was a light brush of fingertips on the edge of the blanket. “Are you in there? Please tell me you’re in there. I’m sorry. I love you and I’m sorry, please come back to me.”

There was no answer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another piece of the mystery solved.

Zach feels like he is floating just as he realizes he’s awake enough to feel like he’s floating. It’s the weirdest mix of perception versus reality he’s ever experienced. He thinks that he is standing and then he is. He thinks that the air around him is cool and then it is. He doesn’t know where this space is, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been here. 

One thing he does know: this is no dream.

There isn’t the sense that he’s a strangely detached and passive participant in what’s happening to him, like he gets sometimes in dreams. And there is no knowledge, as he also sometimes gets, that he is able to alter the course of what is happening by just thinking about it. 

He just _is_.

Everything around him is grey, and so he can’t tell if this place is very large or very small, if he should feel exposed or claustrophobic.

“Hello?” he calls out, because silence really can be deafening, and if his eyes can’t tell him how large this place is, maybe his ears can. There is no echo. “Hello-ooooh?” he calls, elongating the last syllable and raising his voice.

“Is someone else here?”

The presence of another voice is enough to make him jump; whoever it is sounds like they’re right beside him but when he looks there’s no one there.

“Yes?” 

“Oh, thank Christ, I was beginning to freak out.”

Zach’s heart hits double-time as he recognizes the voice. “Chris?” 

“Zach? Where are you? I can hear you but I can’t see you.”

Zach looks around himself. “I, um, I’m here?”

“Where’s here?”

“I dunno, just here. Jesus Christ, this is an existentialist’s nightmare, isn’t it?”

“Or wet dream depending on which existentialist,” Chris replies wryly.

Zach stomach twists unpleasantly; how can he have forgotten the sound of that voice in less than 24 hours? “Yeah,” he chokes out.

“What’s wrong?”

Zach thinks, _Well, for starters, I’m an asshole and I’m scared to death you will never forgive me. But that’s not even the main headline, because thanks to your wish in front of that fountain last night, we are apparently in the midst of a genuine Freaky Friday situation and have switched bodies! And to make matters even more interesting, my body – the one you currently reside in – is in a coma._

Instead he says, “Just trying not to freak out, I guess?”

“Yeah,” Chris says, and he sounds so close Zach can actually feel him; he imagines he can feel him all around him and it’s calming. He reaches his arm out but there’s nothing there.

“How long have you been here?”

“Feels like a minute, feels like forever. I was beginning to wonder if this is what being dead’s like.”

“Don’t say things like that!” Zach snaps, and Chris lapses into silence. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s OK,” Chris says, and Zach wonders how many times Chris has said that to him and he feels like a tool.

“It’s not, really. I’m an asshole.”

“If you say so.” They are silent a while. “Where are you, Zach, I feel like I’m always just missing you.”

“I’m here.” 

\----

“You’re where?”

Zach looked up from the chair he was sitting in, startled. _Had he spoken aloud?_

Nurse Stefanie stood beside the bed, fussing with leads and taking readings.

“Did I fall asleep?” Zach wasn’t supposed to have stayed in the room all that long, and he didn't want to get her in trouble. Her answer was a sympathetic noise. Zach sat up and realized he’d been holding onto Chris’s elbow. 

He looked around, disoriented. He’d been asleep, of that he was certain. But he was also certain that his conversation with Chris had been no dream. It had been real, it had _felt real_ , like their consciousnesses had been connected in some way. Could it be that they were? That they were able to communicate _because_ of their unique situation? Maybe whatever forces were at play here could not control them when they were both asleep. Maybe the connection he’d experienced with Chris existed on some other plane they were each able to access together. Whatever it was, Zach was grateful for it – at least Chris was OK, if unaware of what had happened. 

“I didn't want to wake you, but we need to get him prepped for surgery,” Nurse Stefanie said, pulling Zach out of his thoughts.

“Surgery? Why? What is wrong?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Mr. Pine, you’re not family.”

“It’s OK. He is family.” Zach turned in his chair to find Joe had entered the room as well as a pair of orderlies who began to move things around the bed.

“OK,” Stefanie said gently, nodding. “Mr. Quinto has got a bleed in his brain that needs to be repaired before further damage is done.”

 _Further damage?_ Zach felt sick all of a sudden.

“Wh-what’s the prognosis?”

“Better with surgery,” she answered kindly, and then began to help the orderlies. Within moments, Chris was being wheeled out of the room while Zach watched with his mouth hanging open. He looked over at Joe, who stood there stiffly against the wall. He went to his brother and the two of them put their arms around each other and didn't move for a long time.

\---- 

The surgery took hours. Zach sat with Joe in a private waiting area – this being LA, hospitals provided these accommodations for celebrities – and watched the same series of “breaking news” reports on CNN a dozen times over; thankfully there was nothing about their own little drama because Zach didn't know if he could handle paps at a time like this. In the meantime, he made arrangements for his mother to be on the next available flight from Pittsburgh, using Chris’s credit card since he basically had no other choice; she’d arrive the following day at noon.

“Thank you, Christopher, for taking care of this,” she said to him. “You’re so good to my Zachary, I know he appreciates it.”

Zach gave her a strangled, “Thanks,” and then hung up, feeling guilty. He had difficulty remembering the last time he expressed any kind of appreciation to Chris, or told him how he felt, or that he suspected he was the love of Zach’s life. But he couldn’t, he never could, because to say those things meant to give something up, something that he wasn’t sure he could get back. And now – would he ever have the chance to say them?

God, he was a selfish prick. 

Finally, an intern came out to let them know that Chris had come through the surgery and was being taken to recovery. When pressed, she wouldn’t tell them anything beyond the fact that he had survived.

“He’s alive, thank God he’s alive,” Joe whispered, leaving the room to phone their mother and give her an update.

Zach hunkered down and tried not to hope too much.

\----

“What do you mean, ‘abnormality’?” Joe asked the neurosurgeon, Dr. Lutz.

It had been nearly two hours since they saw the intern, and Zach had been on edge the entire time, watching Joe pace back and forth, muttering incomprehensibly. In his entire life, he’d never seen his brother this way, and it was worrying.

“Well, it’s very early, and we will want to perform more extensive tests, but there are things we look for in these cases, to indicate normal functioning in the brain, and what we’re seeing is atypical.”

“Atypical of what?” Zach asked.

“Of anything I have ever seen before,” she replied truthfully. 

“Is that good or bad?” Joe asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know, but generally speaking, any abnormality in the scans when there’s been a traumatic injury is disconcerting. The brain is a very delicate thing, I’m afraid it’s going to be wait-and-see for a while.”

“Can we see him?” Zach asked.

She nodded. “For a few minutes.” She turned and they followed her through a series of doors until they came to the recovery suite where Chris lay. Where Zach’s body lay. With Chris inside it.

It was getting harder to keep track.

 _The person in the hospital bed_ was beyond still. Zach always thought a person in a coma would look like they were asleep, but that was not the case here. A sleeping person had some degree of animation, some movement, but this… this was eerie. Not as carved-out-of-clay-looking as a dead person, but not far from it. The pale face was slack and in need of a shave, the entire head swathed in bandages. A lock of hair peeked out of them, angled towards an eyebrow, trying to escape, maybe. So they hadn’t shaved his entire head. Zach wondered why not. 

“I’m afraid to touch him,” Zach admitted. Touching him would make it real, but wouldn’t he like that? Wouldn’t Chris _need_ that? Zach reached out a shaking hand and rested it on a knee. He squeezed it lightly and then returned his hand to the pocket of his hoodie where it had been.

“What do we do now?” Joe said.

Zach didn't know.

\----

It was 3:00 am by the time Zach got… back. He had the taxi driver take him to Chris’s since those were the only keys he had on him, and Joe mentioned he’d already arranged for Zach’s pets to be taken to his place. Zach missed them, but he was grateful not to have to deal with them at the moment.

Chris had long ago given Zach his own code to the alarm, so getting in was no problem. He stood in the large foyer that in daylight was so welcoming and airy, but the darkness made him feel out of place here. As he walked through to the kitchen, with its vintage fixtures and flooring reclaimed from an old mission – all of it chosen by Chris himself last summer when he’d completely renovated the first floor – the feeling intensified until he felt an oppressive weight on himself. He went to the cupboard and got himself a pair of aspirins that he would not take, and poured himself a glass of water that he did not drink, and walked back towards the front hall. He rested a hand on the railing and a foot on the lowest step and glanced up towards where the bedroom was. 

He found he couldn’t move.

Everything here reminded him of Chris and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. Lightheaded, he sank to the floor, where he sat on his haunches leaning against the wall, hugging the water glass to his chest. He stared at the opposite wall, willing himself not to cry but he did anyway. 

Zach never cried easily – a product of being an actor, he supposed. Always having to tap into his emotions while on the job left him with a well-honed ablity to compartmentalize, and so it was easy to push feelings away. How very much like Spock, when you came right down to it.

But none of that those tricks were working now. Now his only thoughts were of the body in that hospital bed and the doctor’s statement that they could only wait and see what would happen. “Wait and see,” she’d said, and “Brain abnormality.” Not “He’ll make a full recovery,” or hell, even, “We’re cautiously optimistic.” To Zach, the fact she’d given them exactly nothing to go on was as good as an admission that there was no pulling through this. And if that was the case – if the injuries to Zach’s body were irreversible – what did that mean? With Chris trapped inside Zach’s body, would he die along with it? Would Zach be stranded inside Chris’s body forever? Could he live with that? 

All these thoughts fought for prominence in his brain, even as the sobs came, deep and wracking, but above them all one thing seemed tragically certain: he was going to lose Chris.

\----

He is in the grey place again. And again he feels a strange certainty that this place is real and this is no dream.

He wonders if he is alone here in this limbo between minds. Last time this happened, he was physically touching Chris, so that must have been how the connection was made. But now… now Chris is 15 miles away in a hospital.

“Hello?” Zach says anyway. He holds his hands up. He feels nothing but he does it anyway. 

At times this flat greyness looks like it is swirling, like fog or mist, and all he wants to do is touch it. The lack of sensory stimulation is getting frustrating, so he begins to walk. As he moves, he can see vague shapes in his periphery, things that don’t so much loom as _exist_ , though when he turns his head to look, they elude him. It’s frustrating, like the floater the eye doctor said he had in his right eye that always makes him think he’s seeing a fly out of the corner of his eye.

“Hello!” he says more forcefully, and begins to move faster – is he running? He’s not out of breath. “Hello! Hello, hello, hell-the fuck-o!”

“Language, Zachary.”

“Chris!” Zach will chastise him for his smartassery later, but right now, he is so relieved he almost weeps. “I didn't think I’d find you again.”

“Been here this whole time. You’re the one who left.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Zach says sincerely. “I only seem to be able to come here when I’m sleeping.”

“Oh?”

“Not you?”

“I’m always here.”

Zach doesn’t know whether to worry or not. “Weird that we’re both here, though.”

“Wherever ‘here’ is.” Chris sounds thoughtful. “It must be a dream, but it feels different.” 

Zach does not mention his own theories about what happened or where they are. 

“It’s nice to feel close to you,” Chris adds.

“You can feel me?”

“Uh-huh, it’s like when you look at me in bed in the mornings, like warm and glowy.”

“That’s what you think I feel like?”

“It’s what I feel like when I’m with you. Isn’t that the same thing?”

“I guess?” Zach wonders what he did to deserve that from anyone, but he chokes on those words and instead says, “It’s good to hear your voice.”

They are silent for a short time, and it begins to feel comfortable despite this strange place. Zach wants to reach out for Chris but he knows it will be fruitless.

“Hey, are you seeing these half-there shapes all around here?” Chris asks out of the… grey. “I’ve been getting better at nailing them down – like, if I stand really, really still and concentrate, I can almost see them.”

“Yeah, they’re like these low, hulking things,” Zach replies. “They seem solid, not like other people or anything.” There is one in front of Zach now, in fact, and he tells Chris this.

“I see it too. Actually, if you squint and unfocus your eyes at the same time, you can almost see an outline,” Chris remarks.

“Oh?” Zach does as advised and hell if it doesn’t work. The shape begins to coalesce a bit, gain color and clarity. If Zach wasn’t mistaken, he’d say it looks exactly like – 

“Is that _my fucking couch_?” Chris says, utterly incredulous.

\----

Zach came to himself crouched beside the leather couch in Chris’s office. Zach hated this couch – it was one of those natural cow’s hair-hide monstrosities, white with large, brown patches and the animal’s fur preserved. Chris’s decorator had picked it out and he had hung onto it despite Zach’s jokes that he needed a set of Texas longhorns to complete the set. Seeing it, he made an undignified noise and promptly fell backwards onto his ass.

He stared at the thing, then at the room at large in a panic. This was not the room he had gone to sleep in, of that he was certain. Unable to bear more than a glance into the master bedroom without thinking of Chris, he had taken one of the guest rooms – on the second floor. 

He wracked his brain, trying to think how he could possibly be here. The encounter with Chris in that grey place was still vivid in his mind, the strange, out-of-body feel of the place persisted. The shapes he’d perceived, the space he’d been moving through – they had seemed familiar at the time – was it because they were? Were they here, in this house? Had Chris seen the same things?

With a sickening jolt of realization, Zach came to the only conclusion he felt explained it: if they were on some other plane, but still able to perceive the space around them…

If they were able to communicate, if they were both seeing strangely filtered images of Chris’s home – where Zach was, alone…

If Zach had come to his senses right in front of something they were both seeing, then the grey place, had to be somewhere they were both together, and that place was…

Zach surged to his feet and ran from the room, tripping over the door jamb as he went down the hall, to the stairs and up, to the guest bathroom where he painfully hip-checked the doorframe before coming to a stop in front of the mirror. Leaning on the vanity with both hands, he breathlessly stared at the face before him – familiar but still not familiar enough, not _his_ – and looked for a hint of something he just couldn’t see.

“Chris?” he said in a small voice, “Chris, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I know you’re in there too, and I’m gonna get you out. I mean, I’m gonna get _me_ out. Just hang on, OK? I’ll figure it out, I promise.”

He turned away after a minute, feeling ridiculous. He wasn’t sure why he was so sure he’d see some glimmer of Chris’s personality there in the mirror, but it was worth a shot. Then the other shoe dropped and he realized something else: his own body was lying in the hospital now, completely empty.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zach figures stuff out. But not before a metric ton of angst.

“Chris?”

Zach startled as the front door opened, but he did not move. He was lying on his back on the ugly hair-hide couch, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about what this all meant and how he could hope to fix it. 

“Weenie?”

“In here,” he called out to Katie.

“Hey,” she said, entering; she had a carrier bag from Whole Foods with her. When she saw the state of him, she frowned. “I brought you some breakfast – that apple pastry thing you like.”

Zach couldn’t believe it, but of course his body – Chris’s body, he was just occupying it – needed to be fed with startling regularity. He let her pull him to his feet and followed her to the kitchen where she made a pot of coffee and then began to unpack the bag she’d brought. 

“How ya doin’ today?” she asked as she laid not just one apple pastry, but a box of half a dozen, as well as two yogurt parfaits, and a fruit salad on the kitchen island.

“Terrible,” he replied as he found a spoon, then sat down and dug into one of the parfaits. 

“How’d you sleep?”

“Terrible.”

“How’s the parfait?”

He was surprised to see it was now half gone. “Not terrible,” he said with his mouth full. 

She brought two mugs of coffee over and handed him one, then sat down with the other yogurt parfait and stole his spoon. “You’ll get through this, honey,” she said quietly. “He’ll be just fine, and your relationship will be stronger for it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because to think otherwise is inconceivable.”

She was so sure of herself, it actually made him believe it a little too.

“So what _did_ happen the other night, Chris? Did the cops find anyone who saw anything?”

Zach took an extra sip of coffee to cover up the fact he was ill-prepared to answer this question. He was going to have to be careful not to let anything slip about what had really happened. Until he had the time and space to think about how to reverse it first, he didn’t want to have to explain why his consciousness had taken up residence inside her brother’s body.

“No,” he finally said. 

“But weren’t you two together? I thought you were going to finally _talk_ to Zach?”

Zach wracked his brain for what she might be referring to. Sure, he and Chris had talked, but it had been about nothing monumental. Had Chris been meaning to say more to him and stopped himself? Why? He shrugged and made a non-committal grunt, hoping it would tease something illuminating out of her.

“Chris, you go through this every time you get serious about someone. I thought you said this time was going to be different – you said you were going to start asserting yourself.”

“I do,” he answered lamely.

“Oh really? Like you do all the times Zach refers to your old girlfriends as the Bee Gees?” 

Zach blinked in surprise; that was part of a conversation he and Chris had had months ago. They were discussing relationship dos and don’ts and Zach referred to all of Chris’s past girlfriends as “the Bee Gees – Before Gay – before you were gay, Chris.” It was a joke, Zach was just kidding him about his long string of hetero relationships. Then he’d started singing a medley of old Bee Gees hits from the 1970’s and they both laughed about it – Chris had even joined in to harmonize on “Night Fever.” _It was a joke_. Wasn’t it?

“Or on your birthday when you wound up going to New York instead of Bermuda?” 

Zach had planned a romantic getaway for a long weekend, but at the last minute had gotten the opportunity meet with Fox Searchlight to discuss a distribution deal for one of Before the Door’s films. It had taken a minor miracle for him to get the meeting, he couldn’t _not_ take it. And it made more sense for Chris to come to New York, otherwise they’d have only had two days to spend in Bermuda. Hadn’t Zach gotten Chris a really nice watch? 

“Didn’t you move around a photoshoot and a table read for that trip?” Katie continued.

 _Had he?_ Zach had no recollection of that. Had Chris told him?

Something in his face must have affected her, because she reached across the kitchen island to take his hand. “And has he told you he loves you without you saying it first yet?” she asked gently.

Zach felt the blood drain from his face. This one he knew the answer to, because no, he had not, not when it mattered. He had never told Chris this, even though Chris had said it to him on more than one occasion. _God, he was such a tool._

“I guess he’s winning no boyfriend of the year awards,” Zach said weakly.

“Listen, he’s a great guy and I know you love him,” she said simply, her grey eyes sweet and indulgent as she looked at him. 

“I do. Desperately,” Zach answered truthfully.

“So when he wakes up – and you know he will, because I said so – you will finally tell him all the things you’ve been holding onto, all the things you’re letting fester that are poisoning this relationship. Because in the end, you have to believe it’s worth saving.”

“It is.” It really was. Chris was the most important person in Zach’s life and he realized he loved him more than anyone he’d ever been with. If he ever got the chance to see him again, and if Chris could forgive him for being such a selfish ass, he would never stop telling him.

\----

When Zach arrived at the hospital – Katie offered to take him, but he felt all right to drive himself – he found Joe already in the waiting lounge, talking with the surgeon.

“…have to prepare yourself for the worst, Mr. Quinto,” the doctor was saying.

“Worst what?” Zach asked, his voice tinged with fear.

“Chris,” Joe said, turning to Zach; his face was pinched, pale.

“The worst case scenario,” the doctor said, straightening her shoulders. “I’m afraid there has been no change or improvement overnight. We will continue to treat him to the best of our abilities. But as I was saying to Mr. Quinto here, you need to prepare yourselves for the fact that Zachary may not make a full recovery, and what that will ultimately mean.”

“What _does_ that ultimately mean?”

She raised her eyebrows, considering her words carefully. “That he may never fully recover, or awaken, Mr. Pine. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t keep you fully informed, so that the best decisions can me made for Zachary. And forgive me, but I must ask: does Zachary have an advance directive?”

“You’re asking if he has a living will _now_?!” Zach said. “It’s barely been two days you can’t just give up on him.”

“Chris –“ Joe began. When Zach looked at him, there were tears on his face and a certain knowledge in his eyes. Suddenly, Zach remembered that yes, he did have an advance directive, had asked Chris to sign as one of the witnesses to it. It assigned medical power of attorney to Joe in the event Zach became incapacitated, and was very specific about what measures to take should he be in a coma. 

“You can’t do this, Joe, you have to give me a chance,” he babbled. “You have to give me some time. Please, I’ll figure it out, I’ll find a way out, I will.”

“Chris,” Joe said, grabbing him by the biceps.

“No, Joe, please. Please, it’s too early to be thinking this way. Please, just give me a chance to fix this, to get back –“ _to get back to his own body._ “Please.” 

\----

Zach leaned forward against the small fountain in front of the Mexican restaurant, its cold, hard tiles digging into his knees. The inside of the fountain was concrete, painted a pale blue. It was switched on today – it hadn’t been the last time he was here – so the water shimmied and shook as it reflected the midmorning sun into his face. Zach glanced down and saw an engraved brass placard bolted to the side of the fountain, just above the waterline. It read: “Things become possible if we want them bad enough. – T. S. Elliot.”

He held a quarter in his left hand that he clutched so tightly he wondered if George Washington’s head would be pressed into his palm when he looked. There were tears on his face as he stared down at the other coins in the water. He wondered which was the one Chris had thrown. Almost on cue, his thoughts went back that night, to his argument with Chris.

_I guess I was expecting more from the man I love._

“You should, Chris, you should,” Zach whispered.

_Why can no one ever see me?_

”I do, I see you.”

_“I wish you could spend just one day in my head, man, then maybe you’d understand.”_

He did, in that moment, understand exactly what Chris was talking about, and how the hell had he been so callous about it? Hadn’t he gone through a very similar thing when he’d struggled with his own sexuality as a teenager? Didn’t he owe Chris the same consideration? 

But the last two days had given him a whole new perspective on Chris, one that went even further. He knew now how much he had taken for granted – that Chris would be there for him, that he’d sacrifice his own needs in favor of Zach’s, that _Jesus Christ, he even made their coffee weaker because Zach preferred it that way_. He felt shame at the selfishness he’d subjected Chris to. He was an actor and actors had to be self-centered to a certain extent, but selfishness was another thing entirely. Somewhere along the way, he’d allowed himself to become that guy, the kind who took from others without giving enough in return. And Chris, because of his sweet and giving nature, had let him. What a hypocritical asshole – he disgusted even himself.

How fucking tragically ironic, then, that the way Zach learned this lesson about appreciating Chris was by literally taking over his body. And now what? What if Zach’s body died? What if Joe was forced to pull the plug? Would Zach remain where he was? Would he consume Chris entirely then? Could he?

No, he could not. 

Because Zach loved Chris, and he would do anything for him, anything to save him. Chris was the one person Zach valued above all others, the one he could give everything up for…

Just as Chris would do for him. 

_Maybe you’d understand._

“I understand, even if no one but me will ever know.” He took a deep breath. “And my wish is to make you whole again so that I can show you.”

He closed his eyes and let the purity of that feeling move through him, felt his heart speed up and his blood heat his cheeks as the truth of what he was feeling consumed him. 

He opened his hand and let the quarter fall into the fountain.

\----

“I think he’s waking up.”

“Thank the heavenly Father. Joseph – go and find Christopher, hurry. He should be here for this.”

Zach moaned as the light in the room penetrated his eyelids, but he chanced opening them anyway. It turned out to be the wrong decision entirely, because the light fucking _hurt_. He moaned again and closed them.

“Honey? Zachary?”

“Mom?” 

He opened just one eye and it was slightly less painful. A blurry face came into view, but he was without his glasses so it took a second before he recognized his mother. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes, but her smile lit up her face exactly the same as always, and Zach instantly felt safe. 

“Am I in the hospital?” he said, his voice a croak in his dry throat. His mother left his sight for a moment and returned with a spoon, which she held to his lips. Ice chips: what a wonderful invention.

“Yes, you had an accident.” She fussed with the bed controls so that he was more or less sitting up. “Do you remember?”

Thinking the worst, Zach struggled to recall what might have happened: car crash, fall from a rooftop? He didn’t feel all that sore, really, except: “My head hurts.”

“Yes, well, brain surgery will do that to a guy.”

Zach didn’t know whether to be happy to see a blurry figure that could only be his brother or disturbed by the fact he’d apparently had brain surgery. “How long was I -?”

“Too long,” another voice said, and Zach nearly melted with happiness to hear it. A moment later, Chris came into view behind Joe. The sight of him standing there stilled a worry in Zach’s heart his fuzzy memory made it difficult to name. But that didn’t matter, because Chris was here and everything would be all right. 

Chris took his hand and kissed Zach’s knuckles, and when he smiled, his eyes crinkling just so, Zach wished he could live in this moment forever. 

Joe and Mom made “we know when we’re not wanted” noises and left, but Zach barely noticed, because the moment Chris touched him, he remembered everything. 

Zach could now touch Chris where before, in the grey spaces of Chris’s mind, they had only communicated verbally. It was almost strange to him – or maybe something worse, maybe something that might be taken away – and Zach reached for Chris desperately, as if that could stop it from happenging. The IV needle in his hand pinched, the line restricting his movement, and he made a small, needful sound that Chris imitated fondly before taking pity on him and leaning in to kiss him.

“I love you,” Zach said urgently into the moist air between their mouths when they’d parted. Now that he had a chance to say it, he wasn’t going to lose any time.

Chris made a surprised, pleased sound and slid his arms around Zach’s shoulders. “I love you too.”

“I was so afraid I’d never get to say it, so afraid I’d lose you.”

“Shh, it’s OK.” Chris guided Zach’s head to his shoulder and began to mouth at his ear. 

It made Zach shiver with pleasure, but he had to get this out. “But you don’t understand, Chris, you don’t know what really happened to me. To us.” 

“What makes you think I don’t?”

Zach pulled away far enough to look Chris in the eyes. “You remember what happened?”

Chris’s eyes turned thoughtful. “Initially, I didn’t. I thought it was a bizarre dream. A bizarre, really boring dream. But it was never scary, I guess because I was in my own head.” He leaned his hip against the bed, keeping an arm around Zach and petting his hair absently. “But then you were there, and the longer I stayed, the more I could put things together. If I concentrated, I could even see what you were seeing.”

“You saw what I saw?”

“And heard what you heard, and felt what you felt.”

“Well, that’s kind of disturbing.”

“Hey, you were the one who high jacked my consciousness, you don’t get to complain.”

“A fair point. I guess you know then…” Zach let his voice trail off.

When Chris spoke his voice was thick with emotion. “I think you get it now, Zach, or else your wish wouldn’t have come true, but do you _really_? Do you think we can go on from here?”

“Of course I do.” A sudden fear made Zach’s stomach hurt. “Don’t you?”

“I want to. I really want to, but…’ he sighed. “It can’t go on like it was. I can’t stay with someone who belittles what I am like that.”

Zach lifted his head and looked at Chris intently. “Chris, you have to know that that was never my intention –“

“I know, but you still hurt me.”

His words were simple, but they were no less impactful. Zach wanted to dig himself a hole and crawl into it; instead he picked up Chris’s free hand and held it.

A few moments later, Chris started talking again. “Sometimes I forget how really ingrained these attitudes are in some people… about who I am. They tell you it doesn’t matter, but then it always does. It’s what happened with Olivia, and with Dom too – in the end, she became convinced I was cheating on her with… uh, with a man. It got pretty ugly.”

“You would never do that!” Zach said immediately.

“Thank you for saying that.”

“And hold up a minute, I thought she cheated on you?”

“I guess she was just projecting.”

“Who did she think it was?”

Chris looked away, his cheeks coloring.

“Come on, you can tell me. Anybody I know?” When Chris wouldn’t look at him, he got his answer. “ _Me?!?_ Holy shit… _really_?”

“She said there had to be something behind our chemistry on screen.”

Zach kept his mouth shut – there totally was, but it was strictly one-sided from his direction as far as he knew.

“It made me look at you differently, though. And then Berlin happened, and well… the rest is history I suppose.”

Maybe not so one-sided. “Remind me to send that woman a muffin basket.”

Chris actually snorted a laugh. “I’m sure she’ll love that.”

Their silence now was less strained than the last one. Zach knew how to fill it. “Chris,” he began, turning to face Chris and look him in the eye, “I know you know how very remorseful I am to have hurt you. I gave no thought to the damage my words did to you, and if I could take them all back, I would. You’re the most important person in my life, and I have never loved anyone as deeply as I do you. And in case you haven’t noticed, I can be an overbearing asshole sometimes.”

Chris laughed. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to say, ‘What? Zachary, no’? Because I’m not sure if I can.”

“I deserved that. What I mean is that I want to try to change that, and I hope I can and you can bear with me while I do. I don’t want us to get to a place where we’re letting things fester, Chris, it’s just not healthy.”

Chris nodded. “You’re right – and I do that, I pretend to laugh things off that bother me and I shouldn’t.”

“You do. But this conversation isn’t about what you’ve done, it’s about what I’ve got to do to make things right. I’m not really sure what that means, just that I promise to keep trying.”

Something softened in Chris’s face and he leaned forward to kiss Zach lightly on the lips. “That’s all I want.”

Zach smiled, relieved, and rested his head on Chris’s shoulder again. “God, I’m tired. Who knew being in a coma could be so tiring?”

“You think that’s bad, imagine waking up after your boyfriend’s borrowed your body for a few days to find yourself splashing around in a fountain at a Mexican restaurant.”

Zach couldn’t help a chuckle. “Sorry about that – I should have sat on the ground before throwing the quarter in.”

“You think? The restaurant owner nearly called the police. I had to agree to show up to his granddaughter’s quinceañera.”

“Oh, my poor baby,” Zach giggled.

“Laugh it up, Mr. Spock, I told him we’d both come, in full-on Starfleet uniform,” Chris informed him.

“You didn’t!”

“Ears and everything,” he said, his eyes twinkling, adding, “and I told them you’d sing ‘The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins’ too.”

“Wrong Spock,” Zach informed him, but he saw now that Chris was joking.

Meanwhile, someone in a labcoat appeared in the doorway – Zach recognized her as the young intern who’d assisted the surgeon on his case and surmised she was here to perform a few diagnostics. She gave Chris a speaking look, and he got up from the bed. “That’s my cue to leave – I think they need to poke and prod you some more.”

Zach frowned. “You’re the only one I want poking me.”

“Keep it in your pants, you were in a coma like an hour ago,” Chris said, already halfway out the door.

“Then I’ve got some catching up to do. Promise me you’ll come back soon. Weenie.”

Chris flinched, then turned around and rested his hands on either side of the doorframe. “Remind me to kill my sister later.”

“Come on, I think it’s cute,” Zach said as the intern began checking his chart. 

“Even cuter when you hear the story behind it.” He turned around to leave again.

“Aren’t you going to tell it to me?” Zach called after him.

“Eventually. We’ve got the rest of our lives to get to it, though, so pace yourself.”

Zach thought the rest of his life would never be time enough.

\----

 

Thank you for your time. 

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